Rocket Lab launches online space booking system

Rocket Lab has launched the first-ever online booking system to send small commercial satellites into orbit

Its aim is to be as easy buying your flights online, except a new booking system will send your satellite into space.

New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab has launched the first-ever online booking system to send small commercial satellites into orbit on board its Electron rocket.

A satellite operator can chose the date, destination and even the position on the rocket – similar to booking an aisle or window seat.

Technology has dramatically reduced the size of satellites; some are as small as 40 grams, while others can be the size of a lunchbox.

"What typically took a satellite the size of a car to do you can now do with something the size of a refrigerator," says Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck, "and what typically you would have to build the size of a refrigerator to do you can now do with one of these CubeSats."

CubeSats, the size of three lunchboxes, are used to make Earth and weather observations by communications companies, but Mr Beck says operators have found it difficult to get them easily into space.

"Typically you have a large rocket and you have some excess capacity, but if you have a billion-dollar mission on board you don't really want to faff around with $100,000-worth of CubeSats."

Mr Beck says it will cost as little as US$50,000 to launch a satellite and the company already has 14 flights fully booked, even though it has yet to launch a rocket.

Rocket Lab is currently seeking resource consent to build its first launch site on Canterbury's Kaitorete Spit, near the township of Birdlings Flat. The company has also signed a deal to use NASA's launch facilities, like Cape Canaveral.

It hopes to launch its first test flight before the end of the year, with the first commercial flight in mid-2016.

The Electron rocket is designed to mostly take what are called three unit satellites – the size of three lunchboxes.

"If it turns out we get a lot of one-unit [satellites], then we will take out some of the business class seats and put them in cattle class. If we get close to a flight and we find we have excess capacity, then we will have a sale."

Mr Beck launched the online booking system at the SmallSat conference in Utah, USA.